Messy and Tor stood on a dirt side street flanked by mostly wooden, mostly two-story buildings. Before them, in a loose triangle, were three strangers, all with swords, all intent on killing Ana, who lay unconscious behind Messy.

  Messy would die before she let them touch her angel. It was that simple. The numbness that the Ascender had laid on her was almost gone, and Messy knew that she should be terrified, but she wasn't. Part of that was Ana’s influence; though she was unconscious, her Party Abilities were still active, and one of those strengthened Tor and Messy's resolve. But it was more than that.

  Messy wasn't calm, and she wasn't unafraid, but she was resolved. She’d looked inside herself, and she knew that she would fight and die here if that was what it took. She'd abandoned Lara so thoroughly that she'd never found her again; it was the greatest regret of her life. And now that Messy had found a love that was just as great, she wasn't going to repeat that mistake.

  They said that love makes you stupid. Perhaps that was true. Perhaps she’d die there, on that street. She was at peace with that. She didn't want to, but if that was what it took to keep Ana safe, she would. She'd already sacrificed her past, throwing away the Class she'd worked on since leaving Silvervale. If she had to, she'd sacrifice her future as well.

  But she’d really rather have a century or four with Ana, so she was going to do her damndest to make sure they both got out of this alive.

  Seeing a tall, strapping man with a sword, and a lithe woman in a dress that couldn’t possibly conceal much in the way of muscle, the men drifted apart. The leader and the man to his right went for Tor, the leader head on, the follower trying to circle around. The third man, with short, sandy blond hair and sad, almost apologetic eyes, came for Messy. Slowly. Carefully.

  Messy knew she couldn't be reactive. Instinct And Reflex, her Level 3 Ability, told her that. With her and Tor against three enemies, and her with daggers against swords, she had to seize the initiative, put her opponents on the back foot, and keep them there so she could close the distance. The same Ability, along with her rather good Sense Motive, told her that these men, for all their determination and assumed piety, were reluctant to hurt anyone. They’d been told that their god commanded the death of one particular woman — along with a handful of other people, judging by what the leader had said. But they had no enthusiasm for it. They were slayers of demons, and possibly monsters; faced with killing a young man and two women, one defenseless, and the other having just changed her Class in desperation, they were uncomfortable and hesitant. Ashamed, even.

  Messy used that. Skill And Cunning, her Level 5 Ability, told her when to move, and when the man was midstep and in reach of her lunge, Messy surged forward.

  Messy had a great advantage in that they didn’t want to hurt her. She herself felt no such hesitation. Whatever had paralyzed her when faced with a group of drunk Stolen was far off now. These were no innocents; hesitant or not, they had come here with the intent to murder the brightest star in Messy’s sky.

  That gave her courage and motivation, but Messy had two more advantages which gave her real hope that she might make it out alive — or that she might at least make killing her so costly for them that Tor could finish the fight.

  The first was that Ana’s Party Abilities were still active. That meant that she and Tor both enjoyed the benefits of Champion, helping them both resist fear and intimidate their opponents; and Bastion, giving them the benefit of not only a massive 18 Point bonus to their Effective Endurance and Vitality — which could be enough to turn a fight in itself — but also of Indefatigable and Fight Through, making them tireless and, more importantly, immensely resistant to pain and blood loss as long as they were fighting. Neither of them was Ana; that woman was — and Messy meant this with all love, respect, and amazement — a cockroach. But with those advantages Messy felt much more confident in their chances of killing these three men, whether or not they themselves survived the fight.

  The second was that Messy had been training with Ana, both in her unarmed and her knife classes — which were like the unarmed classes with the addition of knives. She’d learned a lot of tricks, many of which Ana had told them outright should only be used if they were willing to kill or maim their opponent. Some of those came somewhat naturally to her now, and she was going to use them at any opportunity. Especially against enemies who were likely as unprepared to fight sapients as most of the people in the Splinter had been, two months prior.

  When Messy lunged her opponent leapt back, putting his vitals out of reach of her daggers. But pushing himself back required him to have a foot on the ground. Speed And Precision, Messy’s Level 7 Ability, let her stomp down hard with her sandaled heel on his booted toes, and he couldn’t react fast enough. At the same time her leading dagger flashed down, scoring a cut on his thigh — her goal all along — while the other came up to deflect a wild swing of his sword. She’d never been good with her left hand — though Ana might disagree when it came to certain things — but with Dexterous And Sinister, one of her two Level 1 Abilities, using either or both of her hands felt as natural as anything.

  If she'd had her sword Messy might have disengaged and let the pain and bleeding slow her opponent a little, but that wouldn’t work here. The blonde man was on the defensive, and she had momentum. She pressed her attack, sparing a moment to see if the leader of the group, only ten feet to her left, had reacted. But no; Tor had used the surprise of Messy’s sudden attack to launch one of his own, and the stocky, brown-haired man was busy exchanging sword-strokes with him.

  Ana liked to tell everyone in her classes that if they ever got into a knife fight, or worse, a fight where they had a knife and their opponent had anything longer, they’d made a terrible mistake. “The loser dies in the street,” she reminded them every time. “The winner dies on the way to the healer. In a knife fight, unless you’re far better than your opponent, you take cuts to give cuts. If your opponent has a sword, well…”

  Messy had given a cut without taking one herself. If she’d had time to think in the second-and-a-half since she attacked, she might have felt pretty proud about that. But no matter how hesitant her blond opponent might be, no matter how surprised he might have been at her sudden lunge, he was still a Level 16 Fighter, with all the features one would expect. He’d taken a cut, his sword stroke had been parried, and he was quite literally on the back foot, still mid-yelp at having his toes stomped; that didn’t mean that he was out of the fight, nor that he was a weakling. As Messy followed up her parry with a slash at the man’s sword-arm, his left hand came around in a vicious hook that took her on the ear.

  Messy got her cut, but she also saw stars, a terrible ringing in her head following her down as she fell onto the dirt.

  “Stay down,” the man above her pleaded, holding his bleeding forearm as he held the point of his sword only inches from her breast. “Please, just stay down.”

  Messy looked up at him. She’d fallen to the side. If he wasn’t so distracted, he might have realized that the way was open to Ana. As soon as he felt he could take his eyes off Messy, he could just take a few steps and slit Ana’s throat, and it would all be over.

  Beside her Tor fought for his life. He wouldn’t have time to help her.

  Messy, not knowing what else to do, began to cry. “Don’t!” she sobbed, and cowered. She dropped one dagger and held out one shaking hand, her palm toward the sword as if she could ward it off with her flesh.

  Then she made eye contact with the man and snarled, and a combination of Ana’s Arresting Gaze Perk and Intimidation Skill and Messy’s own just-above 25 Charisma hit him hard enough to make him freeze for just a moment. The sword wavered.

  She grabbed it.

  Flair And Style was an unusual Level 10 Ability, from the few Messy had seen, and it wasn't exactly in line with how she saw herself. But she had a high Charisma and solid Social Skills, and getting scaling bonuses in combat when using Acting, Charm, Deception, or Intimidation was certainly powerful. And while she wasn't proud of playing the broken, defeated girl to make her opponent lower his guard, pride was a luxury she couldn't afford. Not lying in the dirt, with Ana undefended. Making him freeze up for long enough that she could take the advantage was weak recompense, but it would have to do.

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  Messy did her best not to let the steel bite, grabbing the flats of the blade with her palm and the pads of her fingers as she pushed the sword out of line with herself. At the same time she pushed herself towards the man, putting one foot behind his ankle, the other on the side of his knee. Then she pulled with the first and pushed with the second. It was a move Ana had insisted she practice until it felt natural, along with some others. It worked beautifully, Ana’s training and Messy's new Abilities combining to make the play sudden, precise, and powerful.

  The man’s eyes went wide as his leg buckled under him and he fell forward. The pain as he tore his sword free from her grip, slicing through her hand almost to the wrist between thumb and forefinger, barely even distracted her as she continued her movement. She threw herself up to meet him, Speed And Precision and Critical Strike both guiding the point of the Ascender's ornate dagger unerringly into his throat, and Biting Steel, one of her Long Blades Perks, letting the point slide into and through his spine.

  The man’s eyes went wide, but his body went limp. In every way that mattered, he was dead before his weight pinned her to the ground.

  Focused as she'd been on her desperate attack, Messy hadn't been quite fast or agile enough to avoid the collapsing man. He fell across her legs and the lower half of her tors, and she heard Tor grunt long and low as she lost precious moments getting the body off her and grabbing the dead man’s sword. Just in time, too, as the danger sense provided by Instinct And Reflex told her to turn and crouch and just barely parry a stroke — more like a powerful, furious hack — from the broad, brown-haired leader.

  As she rolled back and onto her feet, she tried to draw the Ascender's dagger from the dead man's throat in passing. Nothing happened. Her hand didn't grip, and she quickly realized that the thumb of her left hand was… dangling. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she screamed at that; her hands were so damn precious to her, and to see one so mangled was the stuff of nightmares. But thanks to Ana, adrenaline, and her own fierce determination not to waver, she buried her horror. She ignored the steady stream of blood pouring onto the ground. Touanne's was close. Touanne would fix it. Touanne and a potion or two. All she had to do was win — or not lose, as Ana would have told her.

  On her feet and facing the others, she could see what had happened. Tor was hunched to the side, swinging his sword more to ward off his remaining opponent than with any hope of scoring a cut. Blood ran freely down his side, but at least he was still on his feet. A blessing, both because Messy genuinely liked the guy, and because it meant she was facing only one man, instead of two.

  “You killed him!” the leader cried, his voice thick with despair. “Oh, gods, you killed him!” Like he’d never considered that one of them might get hurt.

  Something shifted inside Messy at that. Maybe it was Flair And Style nudging her. Maybe she had a cruel streak, and she was just too fucking done to suppress it. Or maybe Ana was rubbing off on her. Whatever the reason, the words that came out of Messy’s mouth bypassed her brain entirely.

  “You know what the hero you're trying to murder would say?” she quipped, taunting the distraught man. A smirk came to her face, as unbidden as the words. “You’re fucking around. Time to find out.”

  She honestly wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but it riled the big man up something fierce. With a half sob, half wordless roar he threw himself at her, his cuts no more controlled than the one she'd barely parried a moment ago.

  “Eloquent!” Messy quipped, pouring on the Charm as she parried and dodged the man’s furious swings. “I can see why you’re the leader!”

  “You’ll pay for this!” the man screamed. He was actually in tears now; somehow Messy couldn't find it in herself to care. “Lord Summerland is going to tear this place apart, and once he takes over the guild—”

  “Summerland? That's the Ascender?” Messy asked, launching a quick series of thrusts to drive the man back, putting more distance between him and Ana. “He's quite dead, I’m afraid. A dagger to the heart will do that.”

  She quickly glanced down at the ornate hilt of the dagger protruding from the dead man’s throat. The opal in its pommel was still lustrous, despite the twilight. Her opponent’s eyes followed, and when they flicked back to hers there was a tinge of horror mixed with the rage and grief.

  “Liar,” he said hoarsely, and with no conviction. He must have recognized that fancy dagger.

  Good, Messy thought. Focus on that. Focus on me. Forget about Ana.

  She glanced to the side. Tor and his man were wrestling now. She had no idea how that had happened or who was winning, but Tor was still alive. She had some time to be careful.

  Grasping with her four good fingers, Messy unfastened the dagger’s sheath from where it sat on her braided leather belt. It was much less ornate, but screamed of quality. “Do you think he’d part with this fancy dagger of his willingly?” she asked, holding it up. As she did, her opponent's eyes went to it. With the best attempt at casualness she could muster, she tossed it underhand, sending it spinning end over end in a high arc toward him. “Here!”

  For a short, fatal moment, the man’s eyes stayed on the sheath. As it reached its apex, Messy was no longer in his field of vision. That was when she lunged.

  He saw her coming before the point of her sword reached him. Not fast enough to parry, but fast enough to raise his sword and respond to her lunge with a thrust of his own.

  She barely felt the steel slide into her as her sword pierced his heart.

  They made a sorry sight as they stumbled into view of Touanne’s home and clinic. Tor, hunched over and carrying Ana, still bleeding copiously from a bad cut to his side; and Messy, barely able to stand, leaning heavily on Tor’s shoulder as she tried to staunch the bleeding from her ruined left hand and the deep puncture under her right arm by pressing the former firmly to the latter, using the bunched up skirt of her dress for a bandage. The pallor of their skin and the trail of crimson they’d left behind told a grim tale of how effective their efforts were.

  They couldn’t fight. They’d known that as Tor staggered to his feet after choking the life out of the young man he’d been grappling with. The pain and blood loss caught up with them instantly once combat was over, and it was all they could do to stay upright. That Tor had managed to pick Ana up off the street was a feat in itself, never mind carrying her the few hundred feet he had. They stopped to look around the corner when they reached Main Street; if there had been strangers waiting outside Touanne’s, they didn’t know what they should have done. Hid Ana, most likely. Taken their chances that the enemy might show them mercy for long enough that they could grab some healing potions and return to their injured hero. But fortune smiled on them, and there were no strangers outside of Touanne’s. None that were alive, at any rate; four corpses lay there, three men and a woman that neither Tor nor Messy had ever seen.

  There was a double fist-sized hole around where the handle and lock should have been, the wood around it splintered and charred. But it was closed, even if it shifted slightly when Messy leaned heavily on it. She banged her fist weakly, leaving bloody marks on the painted wood, and to her relief it was Tellak’s voice that demanded to know who they were.

  “Tel…” Messy gasped weakly. “Tellak! It’s Ana. She’s… we’re hurt!”

  There was no response, but then there was a sound of shifting furniture, and Messy almost fell onto the point of Jisha’s halberd as the door swung open.

  “Merde! Mes-ten-di!” the girl said in her odd language, jerking back her weapon. “Et— mes dieux! Tor! Aná! Vouz— you are hurt! In! In! Tellak, Touanne!”

  Tellak was there even before Jisha could put down her weapon, catching Messy as she fell. Messy was dimly aware of Jisha taking Ana from Tor’s arms, and Touanne coming to help Tor inside. Then things went fuzzy, and gray, and then dark.

  When Messy fought her way back to wakefulness some indeterminate time later, she was on the floor of Touanne’s front room. Turning her head left and right, she saw that wasn’t alone; there were quite a few familiar faces, all in various states of injury. Tor was there, of course, but so was his friend Sira, the Peacekeeper who Messy thought might have a thing for Ana, and Deni’s friend Varron, along with a number of faces she couldn’t quite put names to in her current state.

  “Ana?” she croaked to the room at large. She felt weak and groggy, but there was no pain. Gods bless Touanne, she thought, every one of them. Except the damn Sentinel.

  “Oh, Mestendi! You are awake!” Jisha appeared beside her with a cup, placing a hand behind Messy’s neck and raising her head. “Here. Drink. Touanne says.”

  Messy drank carefully. It was one of Touanne’s herbal concoctions, minty and a little tart. “Thanks,” she said after finishing the cup, looking up at Jisha as the girl laid her head back down on the folded cloth that served as her pillow.

  It was nice to have Jisha there. Messy liked her, and she trusted her. Sure, the girl’s Inter-Guild wasn’t great, and what words she knew could be a little hard to understand sometimes with her accent. And Messy was mature enough to admit that she felt a little jealous sometimes about how much attention Ana gave her young protegé. But Messy liked how quick the girl was to laugh and how much she obviously looked up to Ana, and respected her fearlessness, determination, and resilience. Qualities she and Jisha had in common, if she were to be a bit prideful.

  “Ana?” she asked again. It was hard to say more than a word at a time, but Jisha understood well enough.

  “Sleeping,” the girl said. “Doing well. In the back. The… lab? No windows. Hard to see.”

  “Still… still fighting?”

  “Not sure. Now maybe over. But winning.”

  “Oh. Good,” Messy said, relaxing. She was so exhausted, the floor might as well have been the finest feather mattress. “Gods be praised.”

  She surrendered to sleep again.

  and read 8 chapters ahead of both Splinter Angel and Draka! You also get to read anything else I’m trying out — which is how Splinter Angel got started.

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